QAHN's "Heritage Talks" Lecture series presents "Putting Trial and Error to Work in Grand-Métis," with Alexander Reford

The Edwardian Garden signifies a movement in garden design that celebrates both architecture and perennial plantings and is a happy medium between the floral bombast of the Victorian era and the modernist gardens of the 1930s. Elsie Reford was a garden pioneer who adapted the vocabulary of the Edwardian period to the unique growing conditions of the Lower St. Lawrence, transforming her fishing camp on the Metis River into one of the largest and most ambitious private gardens of her time. Open today as Les Jardins de Métis, they are one of Canada's premier garden destinations.

Blessed with immaculate timing and a long life, Elsie Reford began gardening in the 1920s, at precisely the moment when many of the most interesting perennials were being introduced to horticulture by plant explorers in Tibet and the Himalayas. Through decades of trial and error, over time she was successful in incorporating many of these new introductions to her gardens.

Weaving the story of Elsie Reford’s gardens through a unique archive of historic photographs and recently uncovered documents, her great grandson Alexander Reford, director of Les Jardins de Métis (Reford Gardens), will present the unique story of this horticultural innovator.

This Heritage Talk is proudly sponsored by the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network in partnership with the Colby-Curtis Museum. Click here for the complete 2018 Heritage Talks program.